Financial Advisor William Huyler’s Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Kids

We all dream of raising financially responsible children. We don’t want our children to make the same costly mistakes we made. But, it’s not always easy to teach a child the concept of money, its value, or how to spend it wisely. Children, after all, are used to spending money, not earning it.

William Huyler is a personal financial advisor based out of West Chester, Pennsylvania. He provides sound financial advice to numerous clients throughout Pennsylvania. He believes that being a fiscally responsible person always starts from a young age. It’s never too early to teach your kids about money.

The Shopping Experience

One of the best ways to teach your child about money is to take them with you to the store. It’s like a field trip where they get to see money and budgeting in action. William Huyler recommends that parents show their children the shopping list beforehand and tell them about your budget.

The experience can be more beneficial if the child has more input in the process. You could ask them to help you decide what items to keep and what to leave out. It’s a fun way to teach the child from an early age about the value of budgeting.

The Money Manager

Once the child is old enough to know the difference between a single and a 10-dollar bill, they’re ready to handle real money on their own. According to financial advisor William Huyler, you should always start with a simple errand to the store. Here, the child is on their own. They have to select the right item to buy, pay for it, count the change, and conclude the transaction. The lessons the child learns from this simple process are valuable. They become, in essence, little money managers. You can increase the amount of money and the number of items they need to buy gradually. Pretty soon they will gain the confidence needed to deal with money.

Save, Spend, Give

The way William Huyler sees it, for every dollar you earn, you have three options. You can either save it, spend it, or give it away. That’s what’s known as the save, spend, give model. Every child should know about this model to get a good idea of the role money plays in our modern life.

As we look forward to 2021 and the slow return to a type of normalcy in our lives, children will need to use money in different situations. The way to teach this model to children is to give them three labeled jars. The child will make a decision about the money they get and choose which jar to keep it in. It helps to give them a goal to save for such as buying a toy.

Match their Savings

Naturally, your child will be inclined to drop more money in the spend jar than the save jar. So, to encourage them, offer to match their savings dollar for dollar. This is an incentive that gets the child excited about saving. But before you do that, you also need to explain to them why you can afford to match their savings. Teach them about earning money and why being a financially responsible person allows you to save money and even give some away.

The relationship between kids and money is complicated at best. But if the child learns about the concept of money and the value of saving it, they will be more likely to grow up to be financially responsible adults, says William Huyler.